


All I Can Do

by LeoOtherLands



Series: All the Broken Pieces [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Affection, As fluffy as I ever get, Because I couldn't resist using that tag..., Blindfolds, Blushing, Canon Compliant, Cutting, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kindness, Love, M/M, Mission injuries, Rare Characters, Rare Pairings, Relentless Hug of Doom, Slight Touch-Starved, Smut, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 03:47:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19737688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands
Summary: “I… am Iryō-nin, and we live by a set of rules.”“Four, I heard there were four.”“Yes, there are four. But mostly we live by three, as only one of our number is allowed the fourth."Kitō is a medic nin, and he knows what it means to live and die by the rules of the Iryō Butai. It's the reason he doesn't hesitate to heal the mysterious ANBU who comes stumbling through his window one night. The reason he doesn't consider any other option than helping the man in any way he can. Because, above all, Kitō is a healer.





	All I Can Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [decaf_kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/gifts), [EternalSurvivor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalSurvivor/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Open Window](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228838) by [decaf_kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty). 



> decaf_kitty, I don't know if you will even see this, or read it, but I'm passing this one, in part, to you, as it was your wonderful Kakashi/Iruka story, the Open Window, which first implanted the idea for this in my writery brain. You aren't the first to receive a random gift from me for the simple reason of something you wrote getting lodged in my mind, taking root, and sprouting into a thing, which has little resemblance to what inspired it. Thank you for your words, you write like heaven.
> 
> EternalSurvivor, my dear Alpha! I'm giving you this one because I can't think of anyone who deserves it more. From the moment I dropped into Discord and asked about medical nin, only to discover you recommended the exact one I was thinking of using, you've been here, squealing about this story with me and cheering me on. Even trying to decipher my awful handwriting in order to get a sneak peek of this monster I've created! (For which I give you much credit because, if anyone here has the handwriting of a medical nin, tis I!) But, more than that, ever since I've met you, you've been nothing but kind to me. Somehow, you've ended up knowing more about me than my human family, and still want to be my friend, even after being around me on days I don't want to be around myself. I can't thank you enough, and this is a poor offering. I hope you may enjoy it somehow, though.
> 
> My gift, my responsibility.  
> My pain, my passion.  
> This is all I can do.
> 
> -Anonymous

_I had sex with the ANBU last night._

I groaned at the thought, burying my heated face in my hands, glad the exam room I’d escaped to was empty. After hours trying to hold it all back, everything from my emotional state to the soreness in my wobbly legs from how I’d had them wrapped around the ANBU’s tight backside, I just couldn’t take it anymore. My pent feelings needed to be dealt with.

“Oh, _kami_ ,” I moaned. “What’d I do?”

_Oh, come off it, Kitō, you know what you did, and you enjoyed it._

Another blush wracked my cheeks. Yes, I had enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much. And really, that was what my introspection was about; how I felt about having slept with my ANBU.

Well, I’d slept _next_ to him hundreds of times. Sure. That had become easy, normal. But sex…

“Ohhhh…” I pressed my face harder into my hands, wishing I could sink down into the high collar of my white, full-body medic corps uniform. The feel of my ANBU’s hard body on my soft one, the feel of his muscles under my hands, the slide of him inside me… The sensations were as fresh and present along my nervous system as though they were happening in the moment, as if I were an Uchiha and had used the _sharingan_ to record the event in its entirety.

Yet, oddly, the active memory of the contact of skin on skin pulled me back further than the night before. Urged me back to the first night I’d had my ANBU in my bed.

I’d spent a hard day at the _Konoha Byōin_. The Tree Leaf Hospital had been swamped after not one or two, but five teams of _jonin_ had been badly injured in the same day on separate missions. There had been so many incapacitated _shinobi_ , I wasn’t even sure anymore which I’d worked on. My body ached and my hands were sore. It’d been all I could do to unlock my door and shed my uniform.

But, oh, how good it felt to stand in my apartment with the cool air on my almost-bare skin. In nothing but my short pants and under shirt, with my short, dark, sweaty hair freed from the clinging, white hood of my uniform. I’d basked in the feeling, then opened my bedroom window to let in more air. Cool, fresh, _spring_ air.

Anything to drown out the smell of all that blood in my nose.

I would have gone into the bathroom and done something more to relieve myself, done what _needed_ to be done to drown out the number of _jonin_ I hadn’t been able to save, but I couldn’t handle the smell of anymore blood in that moment. So, I laid down on my bed, spread eagle, to let all that air touch my flesh. Laid there with that stinging, metallic blood scent in my nose, until I fell asleep.

At first, I didn’t know what woke me, but then it became quite apparent what it was. An ANBU had come crashing through my window. He’d tried to slip in with typical, silent grace, but had dropped off the sill and thudded on the floor. Only to pick himself up, dizzy and staggering, to turn in slow confusion.

If I was anything else than a medical _nin_ , I would have been horrified. But I saw, even half asleep and near the end of my physical endurance, what was wrong with the man. He was suffering from acute _chakra_ exhaustion to the point he had become delirious, weak, confused. To the point he could pass out at any moment. Right on that dangerous edge where he could tip off into sleep, and recover on his own, or slide into a coma and die.

I jumped up and caught the unsteady man.

“ANBU- _san_!”

He looked at me but didn’t really see me, and I realized he had no intention to have been in my room. Likely, he had been trying to crawl into his own window, to find his own room and his own bed.

It was no matter. I was an _Iryō-nin_ and the ANBU was in need and my training took over control of my body.

“Come, ANBU- _san_ ,” I gently encouraged, turning him to my bed. “You’re safe here. I’ll look after you.”

Even _chakra_ depleted, the man in the white and red porcelain dog mask could have easily resisted me, _hurt me_ , if he’d wanted. But that mask just turned to me and seemed to study me, then the man behind it shuffled with me to my bed. He let me lie him down, grasped my wrist hard a moment, and promptly fell asleep.

This was just as well. After several minutes of tugging, I was able to wrench my hand out of his unconscious hold and apply healing _chakra_. The green glow flickered over my face and the ANBU’s form. No other injuries I could see. Just over-wrought and over-taxed.

When his breathing evened out and his vitals returned to normal, I eased off my _chakra_ and looked at the man. Anonymous. Unknowable. Just a faceless man with silver hair and an exhausted grip that had bruised my skin and tendons. I winced at the pain in my wrist, then sat down on the bed hard, when my vision blurred and doubled.

I knew what was wrong, and knowing the ANBU would be fine, just gave into it. Letting myself fall on the bed and curl into a ball. A tight knot of tired medical _nin_.

Waking was both heavy and clear. A moment of clairvoyance mixed with a dead, cotton-stuffed weight. The ANBU was up and standing erect by my open window, the dark eyes behind the holes in his mask wide in unbelief. Staring at me.

I blinked at him. “ANBU- _san_ ,” I said, before attempting to swallow. My tongue was dry and felt swollen. “Are you alright, ANBU- _san_?”

“I’m fine.” His words were tight, looking at me in my undressed state, a lump on the bed he’d just vacated. “Who are you?”

“Kitō.” Another try at gathering saliva in my mouth, my face scrunching in my effort. “I’m an _Iryō-nin_. Part of the medic corps.”

Something in his tense stance loosened. “A medic?”

I nodded. “You were suffering _chakra_ exhaustion and came in my window by mistake. I healed you.”

The nameless man rubbed the back of his neck, wearily. “I guess I picked the right window, then. I should thank you.”

“No need, ANBU- _san_. Is my job.” My eyes kept slipping closed, forcing me to jerk them open again, and I could hear the thick, sloppy, syrupy sound of my own words. I struggled with the padded feel of my brain and body a moment, then gave in and let out a low, humming moan. “Mmmmah! Just be s-safe, ANBU- _san_.”

There was a feeling of a frown behind the mask, in the whole cast of the man by my window. He took a step near me. “What’s wrong, Kitō- _san_?”

“Meh! Nothing, ANBU- _san_. Is just-” A slur, an attempt to focus my eyes on him. “ _Chakra_ exhaustion. Is fine.”

“Fine.” He was suddenly _right there_ , and I blinked. “How did this happen? I can take you to the hospital for treatment.”

“Mmm… No need, ANBU- _san_. This happens a lot. I overused _chakra_ at the hospital yesterday before healing you. Is fine.”

My repeated slurring of the reassurance didn’t seem to inspire confidence in the ANBU. He knelt by the bed, aligning those dark eyes with mine.

“You were low on _chakra_ before you healed me. Why didn’t you take me to the hospital?”

I pondered him; my face serious, as I tried to steady myself. “I am _Iryō-nin_. In accordance with clause one, no medic ninja shall ever stop medical treatment until the lives of their party members have come to an end.” I groaned. “You needed care. Even if I were dying, I would have healed you.”

“And now you’re in the same state I was.” His voice was testy, and he put a hand on my shoulder. “You need treatment.”

My head turned on the mattress in a form of negation. “No need. This happens to medical _nin_ more often than it does to other _shinobi_. I’ll just eat and sleep today and go back to the hospital tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” His hand tightened on my shoulder and I winced, making him loosen his grip. “That’s too soon to return to active duty, even for an ANBU after proper medical treatment.”

“Um-hum,” I agreed. “But there are far less skilled _Iryō-nin_ than ANBU. _Konoha Byōin_ can’t afford to have its medical _nin_ off duty too long.” I yawned, my eyes drooping. “Is ‘kay. Can take care of myself.”

He made a _humphing_ sound under his breath and ran a hand over my arm. “Sure you can, Kitō- _san_.” Rocking back on his heels, he braced a hand on his thigh and studied me. “What can I do for you before I go?”

“Ummm…” My fingers reached for the pillow and he gave it to me, so I could nuzzle my face into it and hold it to my chest. I really didn’t want him to _do_ anything, but if he felt he had to… “Water? Please, ANBU- _san_.”

He brought me water and some dried-out buns I half remembered being in my kitchen, then covered me with a blanket. I thanked him, but he still lingered.

“I’m just going to sleep ANBU- _san_ ,” I assured.

He nodded. Moved to the window.

“ANBU- _san_.”

“Yes.” He paused, one hand on the frame and one foot on the sill, face turned to me.

“If you ever need anything, you can come back anytime. I’ll leave the window open for you.”

He was still. Watching me. He said nothing before dropping out of my window and vanishing.

As I told him I would, I slept the day away, only waking to devour the buns and drink the water midday, then again to scavenge my kitchen near dusk. The next morning, I put my uniform back on and returned to the hospital. It was raining when I got home. I rushed to my window to close it, then I remembered my words to the ANBU, and only slid it down somewhat, so the rain wouldn’t get in.

A large part of me expected he would never come back, but I had given my word as an _Iryō-nin_ and would not break it. Even when months passed and spring became summer and I didn’t see my ANBU, I left my window open. Even when I repeatedly had to chase birds out of my apartment because they refused to stop flying in, and I was eaten alive by bugs, I left the window open.

And, eventually, my ANBU did come back.

The second time he came through my window, he came trailing blood. I wasn’t asleep, but I was close. When I registered the shape standing over me, I threw off my covers.

“ANBU- _san_!”

He was shivering and blood dripped everywhere, splattering my floor. When I reached him, he swayed into me, forcing me to catch him. The hotness of a gash in his side pressed up against me and I could feel another under my hand on his back.

“I must heal you!” My instincts told me his wounds were not life threatening, or he would never have made it to my waiting window, but neither were they simple. Yet, I didn’t say anything about bringing him to the hospital. He had come to me instead of going there himself, signaling with me was where he wanted to be. I wouldn’t fight that.

His head thumped on my shoulder. “Caught some _kunai_. Not serious.”

“Of course, ANBU- _san_ , but let me heal you all the same. I need to clean the wounds first…” A quick consideration of what I had available to me, and I turned him with me. “My shower. You can leave your mask on.”

He nodded without resistance, and I soon had him in my shower, stripped out of his gear and under the water with me. Fully dressed in my sleeping pants and shirt, I stood in the water holding him up and examining his injuries. Not deep, but long. I knew I would need to stitch them, but first I pushed his chest up against the wall and used my hands to inject _chakra_ into him with the Mystical Palm Technique to temporarily stem the bleeding.

Done, I dried him, laid him on my bed, and carefully stitched the cuts closed. He moaned through it but offered no other protest. Judging by the various scars marring him, I guessed he’d been field dressed so many times once more hardly mattered. My fingers were stiff after administering the half a hundred stiches, but I only flexed them and laid them over the deepest cut in his side, offering him more healing _chakra_ like a prayer.

Only when I moved to the slice on his back did I realize the ANBU’s eyes were watching me out of the deep holes in his mask. “How are you, ANBU- _san_?” I murmured.

“Hurts.” His voice was a rasp.

“I can give you something for the pain.”

He shook his head minutely. “It’s better because of you.”

“It’s my job, ANBU- _san_. Rest.”

“How… Are you, Kitō?”

My name from his lips surprised me. As well as what he was asking. Was I depleting myself to help him again?

“I’m well, ANBU- _san_. Do not worry.”

Those eyes kept watching me until I finished administering _chakra_. Then I folded my hands with a sigh and told him I would be back in a moment. Really, it was several minutes. I had to take some time to dry heave in my kitchen sink, then slide to the floor, until my head stopped spinning. Only then was I able to bring back water to the ANBU and help him drink.

I was at a loss after that. My ANBU was in no condition to leave, nor did I want him to. Given he was on my bed, I supposed I should gather some blankets and make myself a nest on my floor. Near the ANBU, in case he should need me, but not too near, so as not to disturb him.

It wasn’t until I moved to carry out my thought that I realized how long I’d been sitting by the ANBU, staring off at nothing. So tired… Sighing, I stood, only to have my wrist gripped by the man’s lightning-fast hand.

“Don’t go. Please,” he added, releasing me. “Can you just… lay here by me?”

I blinked at him, then nodded. “Yes, ANBU- _san_.”

He was laying on his uninjured side. I settled by him, so his chest and stomach were touching my arm. Just enough so he could feel me.

“Sleep well, ANBU- _san_. You need it.” _We both do…_

Whether he followed my advice or not, I couldn’t keep awake. I dropped off almost instantly into a dreamless sleep.

When I woke, late morning, I found myself on my side. Facing the ANBU. Pressed to his chest with his strong arms holding me there. Held by the sleeping man as if I were a reassuring plushy. I could hear his deep breathing and knew he did not mean to restrain me there, but I equally knew I had no chance of moving without his allowing it.

My mind debated my options for some time, but, ultimately, I knew there was only one thing to do.

“ANBU- _san_ ,” I said. “ANBU- _san_ , please wake up.”

I could feel when he did, his arms going rigid around me. Realizing what he had done, what he was doing.

“Your pardon, Kitō- _san_ ,” he said, letting me go.

“It’s alright, ANBU- _san_ , I don’t mind.” My body was stiff from being immobilized so long, but I tried not to show it when I eased off the bed. Yawning, I stretched. “Stay here, ANBU- _san_ , I will make us some food.”

_After I dress…_

I blessed all the _kami_ I wasn’t expected at the hospital that day, as I pulled on a pair of day-pants and a loose-fitting shirt. My mind admitted I’d overdone it again, even if I wasn’t suffering _chakra_ exhaustion this time. I wound my favored long scarf around my neck and shook my head resignedly. I would simply have to deal with it.

My kitchen was not amply endowed, but I judged I had enough to make the ANBU and I a decent breakfast. I was mindlessly cracking eggs and tossing onions and peepers into a wok when I heard his step behind me.

Because he wanted me to, of course. His way of signaling his impending departure. I felt my heart go a little sad.

“Please, ANBU- _san_ ,” I said, turning. “You don’t have to go. You can stay…” I felt the words slip off my lips when I saw him standing there. One hand gripping the doorframe for support, dressed only in his short pants, and, obviously, in no condition to leave.

“A-ANBU- _san_!” Abandoning the food, I scurried to his side and draped one of his arms over my shoulders. “Please sit, ANBU- _san_.”

He was compliant, for which I was glad. When he was seated at my table, I sped to save the searing vegetables. Heedless of much else, especially the man watching me. Only when my destressed sounds stopped, and I had the stove under control again, did he speak, startling me.

“Thank you for last night, Kitō- _san_.”

I risked a glance at him. “Just Kitō, please, ANBU- _san_. And there is no need to thank me. It’s my job.”

“So, you were only doing your duty to _Konoha_.”

“N-no!”

I turned, face red, paring knife clenched in my hand.

“Y-yes. And n-no. I w-wanted to help you, ANBU- _san_.” Embarrassed beyond belief, I turned back to the tomatoes I was slicing, wishing I could sink down into my scarf. “I hate to see people hurt. It’s why I wanted to become a medical _nin_.”

“Is that why you left your window open?”

His voice was soft. I had to put down the knife before I cut myself.

“Yes, ANBU- _san_.”

“I honestly didn’t expect you’d leave it open, but every time I came back, it was.”

I started at the admission he _had come back to check_ , perhaps had lingered around watching my apartment, possibly even seeing me chasing birds like a maniac with a flushed face and cursing the mosquitos but sobered and let it go. Realizing, if he had come back, it was because he had needed to come back, even if he hadn’t come in.

“I said I would, ANBU- _san_. You are welcome to come for any reason.”

There was silence until the food was finished and I lightly set a bowl down in front of the ANBU. “Please eat, ANBU- _san_ ,” I said, sitting across from him. Only to blush and stammer. “Er, ah, your mask…”

“It’s alright. I can eat in the other room.”

“No! I-” I blinked, my hands going up to softly grip the folds of my scarf. “I can blindfold myself with this.”

“There’s no need for that. It’d only make things awkward for you.”

I shook my head, already unwinding the cream-colored fabric from my neck. “No, ANBU- _san_ , it won’t.” I folded the scarf over my eyes and began tying the ends in tight, surgical knots. “When I was young, my sister and I would play a game where we would blindfold ourselves and see which of us could last that way the longest, and what we could do without our sight. I always won. I won so much my sister stopped playing, but I kept on because I was fascinated by what I could do with my other senses.”

In my mind I pictured the arrangement of the table, the placement of the food, the ANBU in his chair. Calling to view even the tilt of his head, as he watched me. Would he have already taken off his mask? I could not hear even the click of it meeting the table, so I could not know. Unerringly, my fingers reached for the chopsticks I’d laid beside my bowl, brought them over the rim of the dish, near where I knew a large chuck of tomato resided.

A bubble of sadness rose to choke me, and my head dipped forward, glad the cloth covered my eyes. “It’s funny how life works out. I was the one who didn’t need my eyes, but she was the one who went blind, and there was no one who could help her. It’s… another reason I wanted to become an _Iryō-nin_.

“Ahhh!” I made the gasping little sound when I realized what I’d just let out. “S-sorry, ANBU- _san_. I didn’t mean to burden you.”

“It’s alright, Kitō.”

Soft words and nothing more, beyond the realization his voice held a different quality when it wasn’t coming from behind porcelain. Nothing from either of us. After a moment to blink the tears away, I quietly and softly began eating. Minding the food and nothing else.

Despite that, it wasn’t long before I came to the conclusion it _was_ awkward to eat blindfolded with the ANBU. He was so silent I couldn’t tell if he was eating or watching me or if he was even still there. It was like sitting still with a wolf nearby you knew was there but could not locate.

The ANBU seemed to know it too. Subtly, I began to feel a trickle of his _chakra_ along my nerves. A slow bleed I knew he was letting happen intentionally because even when I’d healed him the night before he’d hid his _chakra_ away with severe control. He was being kind, allowing me to know where he was.

I shifted but said nothing at the understanding, my small movement enough to tell the ANBU I felt him and knew what he was doing. The rest of the meal passed quickly, and then the ANBU was speaking.

“You can take off the blindfold now, Kitō.”

I did, squinting a bit in the light. The other man sat across from me still, his porcelain mask, once again, firmly in place. His bowl was empty, and his body set in a weary cast.

“Thank you for the food, Kitō. I should go.”

“Ah!” I gasped again. “There is no need, ANBU- _san_! Er…” I bit my lip. “At least let me check your injuries before you leave.”

He nodded, allowed me to bring him back to my bedroom, and willingly lay down, so I could see his wounds clearly. I ran my fingers over the stiches I’d made with care, only eliciting a small shudder from the man under me.

“These look well, ANBU- _san_. You heal quickly, and there is no infection.”

Yet, for all that, I fluttered my hands in a simple sign and lay them over the gashes, one at a time. Tenderly imparting just a little more _chakra_ to ease his body’s natural healing. Done, I rose and said, “You will need to have these stitches removed in a day or two, ANBU- _san_.”

He nodded, but otherwise didn’t move. Seeming locked in indecision.

“You can stay, ANBU- _san_ ,” I murmured.

He swallowed, looking up at me. “Can you lay by me again?” His voice was thick around the words.

I hesitated over the request, but also gave in almost without a thought. After all, why refuse such an easily granted thing? Besides that, it seemed I was still tired. I drifted off quickly with my hands fisted below my chin.

When I woke it was mid-afternoon, if the shadows on the floor were any indication, and I was pressed to the ANBU’s chest, as I had been that morning. Once again, a reassuring plushy. I was stiff and uncomfortable, but, unable to do anything in his hold but tilt my head slightly to see his red and white mask, I didn’t have the heart to wake my ANBU. His breathing was even, his body steel, but _relaxed_ steel, and, with my medical training, I knew the physical and mental health benefits of just holding another human being. As well as what a thing it was not to have another person to hold.

So, I suffered through boredom and the tingling prick of limbs as they lost feeling, listening to my ANBU’s breathing until it lulled me back to a slack-jawed sleep. When I woke again it was in a sprawl, in a pool of drool, on the center of my bed.

The ANBU was gone.

But, as if his visit had released his inhibitions about coming, he began to return at random times for all sorts of injuries. Concussions, minor sprains and contusions, a broken finger, more rents in his flesh, weeping blood on my floor. Always more of those.

I healed them all without complaint and without letting on how much the actions depleted my own _chakra_ reserves. A feat of which I was proud. The man didn’t need to know how little good his visits were to my health. That wasn’t what my leaving the window open was about. It was about helping someone in need.

And my ANBU needed… Something.

Sometimes I would heal his injuries, he would thank me sincerely, and he would leave. Other times he would stay and tiredly ask if I would lay by him. To which I would always acquiesce. It would have been hard for me to say no, even if I hadn’t occasionally woken without his knowledge to hear him crying behind his mask or to feel his body twitching in his sleep, as he moaned out names I was sure I shouldn’t be hearing.

The life of an ANBU wasn’t an easy thing, and I couldn’t help caring for the one that came through my window.

Even when he began appearing in my room, uninjured and obviously with the intention I should not know he was there. Sometimes I would wake to see him, from under my lashes, sitting on my chair with his hands dangling between his knees, staring at the floor. Other times at rest in shadow in a corner.

The first time he realized I knew he was there, he tried to escape out my window. I bolted upright, reaching and calling after him. “Please, ANBU- _san_!”

He paused on my windowsill. Stiff. Unsure.

“You can come for any reason, ANBU- _san_ ,” I whispered. “Even if you’re not injured.”

He fell out of my window without a word that night, but the next I found him leaning up against the side of my bed. Asleep in a shaft of moonlight.

I let my hand droop over the edge of the bed, to touch his shoulder lightly and to rouse him.

“ANBU- _san_. ANBU- _san_.”

He looked up at me from out of the holes in his mask.

“Come on the bed, ANBU- _san_.”

He did and I muttered sleepily and wrapped him in my arms. A thing I’d learned pacified his need for contact and prevented me from being locked in what I’d come to think of as the Relentless Hug of Doom.

He was still there in the morning, so I yawned and said, “Good morning, ANBU- _san_. Would you like some breakfast?”

The man acknowledged my question with a motion of assent, but his whole attitude and every movement was full of trepidation and wariness, as if he were afraid at any moment I would ask him to leave. We ate, and he prepared to go before I had to depart for the hospital. When he was perched on my windowsill, I repeated my previous words.

“You can come for any reason, ANBU- _san_.”

He made no answer, but again, as if the night had proven something to him, he stopped only lingering in my room when what he wanted was to be touched. After that night, I would sometimes turn in my sleep and wake just enough to understand he was there beside me and in the morning he would be gone. Other times he would crawl into bed with me and not leave until I put on my uniform and left for the _Konoha Byōin_ , the two of us exiting my apartment by different means.

With his coming to be healed and his coming just to be held, his visits increased in frequency, to the point I expected him at least twice a week and would worry for him if I did not see him. Wondering what mission he was on and where outside the village he was.

Once, after a particularly long absence, I woke to find him in bed with me wearing his mask but only a pair of none-descript blue pants and a matching blue shirt instead of his gear. Clearly, neither coming from a mission nor preparing to leave for one. Merely there. When he woke to find me pondering him, he went stiff.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No, ANBU- _san_ ,” I assured.

We shared another meal, where I sat blindfolded and he leaked his _chakra_ out from his tight control. Then he helped me clean the dishes and watched me put on my uniform with an awkward and uncomfortable shuffling and obviously reluctant attitude. It took me a moment to realize he did not want to go but felt he should.

I pulled my hood over my head and said slowly, around a clog in my throat, “Stay as long as you like, ANBU- _san_.” I had long since given him access to my home whenever he desired, so what matter was it if he was there when I wasn’t?

The Tree Leaf Hospital was a nightmare that day. Flooded with _shinobi_ shredded apart on their various missions. Including a team of _genin_ and their team captain who had run across trouble and not fared well. I was assigned to operate on the team’s medical _nin_ , but one look at him and I knew all I could do was hold his hand while he died.

I was weary and limping when I pushed open my door. There were tears in my eyes, and I had no thought of my ANBU, thinking he would have gone. Only, he was not. He was in my living room, shifting from foot to foot and somehow looking haggard despite his mask.

He’d made me food.

And he was a terrible cook.

The complete and utter failure of his attempt and the complete and utter determination with which he ate it all the same eased the intense and implicit need I’d acquired at the hospital. Besides, I could not do anything to relieve myself with the ANBU in my house. All I could find it in me to do was ask him to hold me in the Relentless Hug of Doom.

He seemed surprised but did not refuse and so he spent another night with me. And another day, as I did not go back to the hospital the following morning.

“I can’t, ANBU- _san_ ,” I said, not meeting his eyes. “I’m out of _chakra_.”

He did not ask me about my mood. Only let me sleep and sat about my apartment reading my books. It was oddly pleasant. Nor was it the only occurrence of our simply spending time together.

The second time he offered me food, he bought it. Looking embarrassed in every line of his body.

The third time, I offered to teach him to cook. It just seemed reasonable. The man was spending more and more time in my apartment and appeared to want to offer me something in return for it. So why not? It gave me something to do with the strange, silent, both strong and oddly awkward ANBU I found in my care.

What else could I do with him beside mend his cuts and bruises? I had nothing else to offer an elite _shinobi_ but the soft, rather unnecessary, domestic skills of an ordinary man. But my ANBU seemed to enjoy himself. His usually reserved and purposeful movements becoming animated and unconscious, as he moved around my kitchen. And his voice became excited and lively behind his mask. I could almost imagine him smiling, as he cocked his head at me and asked if he was doing this thing called preparing a meal right.

And that was all it took for me to be sure I was making the right choice by allowing my ANBU to come and go as he pleased. He was healing. I was a healer.

There was a small place in the back of my mind, which said the situation was unnatural. That having a practical stranger in your house, whose face you had never seen, was not usual. But I rejected it. I was _Iryō-nin_ and no medic ninja could ever stop treatment until the life of their patient was at an end. My ANBU was alive.

His presence in my life became on expectation. A given. Yet…

Yet, I didn’t fully know what to do with it. Especially on bad days at the hospital, when people died under my healing hands and my need pressed at me, demanding relief. Demanding attention and sharpness.

Things I couldn’t give it or myself with my ANBU in my house. Especially as I never knew when he would appear.

It was why I agreed to go with my fellow medic corps colleagues when they invited me out for a drink after a not so good day in the _Konoha_ hospital. Because they would understand. And because I needed something. And I was afraid to do it at home.

The night didn’t go particularly well. I got drunk quickly, due to low _chakra_ reserves, low food intake, and low tolerance. Not to mention stress. My fellow _Iryō-nin_ were no better. All of them had shared my day and so shared my need.

One of them, a woman I fancied, wanted sex. I wanted it too. It’d been forever since my last time, and together she and I could… ease each other in more ways than one.

But I could not bring myself to take her home with me. Even drunk and near delirious, I couldn’t help but imagine how my ANBU would feel if he came to my window and saw me with her. The thought left me hot, wishing to hide in the folds of my scarf. But worse was the idea of him seeing she and I asleep in the bed he and I so often shared.

I could not do that. I could not bring another person into the place my ANBU had made his refuge. It felt a betrayal.

But neither could I go with the woman to her apartment. What if my ANBU came to my window and I was not there? Yes, at times I spent whole nights in the _Konoha Byōin_ , when needed, but that was work and the ANBU found me _chakra_ exhausted in my bed after and understood. This was different. This was only something I wanted. An act of selfishness.

So instead, I stumbled home, alone, with the whole intention of going straight to my bathroom and doing what needed to be done quickly. But my ANBU _was_ there. The moment I half fell through my door, my vision blurred and hands slipping off the wood, he caught me. Simply across the room one instant and holding me against his hard chest the next.

“Kitō!”

I moaned and mumbled, half crying into his shirt because it hurt so much. Intoxicated as I was, the pain felt more intense, as if every inch of me was on fire. An effect of my mind playing tricks and my muscles, _my nerves_ , crying out for release.

After a time, where I whined and rubbed my face on him, he scooped me up with an arm at my back and another under my knees, and carried me to my bed, where he held me.

In a dark voice, he demanded to know what had happened, where I was hurt, _who_ had done it. My hands pressed to his chest, and his on my hips and the small of my back, I let out a hysterical laugh. I blubbered out something about blood and dying and needing the sting and sex.

Come morning, I would only remember clearly groaning, “I just can’t take it,” while gripping his shirt in desperate fingers. I would know I had been crying and that I was still aroused from thoughts of my colleague, my erection jabbing him in the thigh.

I would not clearly remember everything else but would hold enough of an impression to be ashamed of myself. My ANBU held me, pondering me while I wept and shook in his arms. Then his gloved hand was in my pants, gripping my enflamed member and my back was arching, while my fingers dug into his shoulders.

Later, I would think his hand held a mechanical feel. Working in deliberate and systematic motions that had nothing to do with being tender or attempting to gratify himself. But in my inebriated and mentally incapacitated state, it was all I needed and more.

The rough fabric of his fingerless gloves chafed at me, while the smooth, hot lines of his fingers teased me. He did not mean to be rough, but he was stronger than he knew, and the excess pressure was perfect. My head fell against his shoulder, and I panted into his ear, as I moved against his hand, every motion a torment that ripped my soul.

Then I hit my release and shuddered passed tears and into unconsciousness.

My head throbbed come morning, the pain being what woke me. My ANBU was still with me and that was so natural, I at first didn’t register what was different. But the images came back slowly, peeling away like layers in my mind, and I wailed, scrambling out of the bed and waking my companion.

He raised himself on one arm, then jumped out of the bed to catch me. I was weaving and moaning out, “No, no, no, no,” repeatedly.

“Kitō!” He found it necessary to shake me before I calmed enough to cry out, “ANBU- _san_! So sorry, ANBU- _san_!”

“Sorry?” He blinked. “For what?”

My shamed flush and watering eyes must have told him what because he looked at me and said, “Oh. I wasn’t sure you’d remember,” in an unconcerned voice.

That only made it worse, prompting me to cover my face with my hands and wail again.

My ANBU’s grip tightened on me. “Kitō.” When I didn’t respond, he used one of his hands to pry mine from my face. “Kitō, look at me.”

I did, and he held my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s fine. We all need things sometimes. You have nothing to be sorry for.” His fingers squeezed my face. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”

Standing in my shower with the cold water pelting my hot face and shivering skin, I reviewed what I could dredge out of the sake induced shadows of the night before. It was then I recalled the purely scientific manner in which my ANBU had dealt with me and how the thing had felt practiced. Almost habitual. As though he had done it numerous times before. And I wondered… Wondered if he had.

We all need things sometimes, he’d said. ANBU were men and women, not automatons. They needed things. The cold water was not enough to keep the heat from my skin, as I wondered if the thing was simply what ANBU did for one another. If they stroked each other to orgasm with that practiced efficiency when they were far from _Konoha_ on some secret mission, alone in the dark on the hard ground, because arousal was distracting and a distracted ANBU was likely to get killed.

The thought was enough to relieve some of my embarrassment, but not my shame. Drying slowly, I knew I owed my ANBU an explanation of my actions. With this knowledge in mind, it was with wariness and heavy feet I entered the kitchen, hands catching at my scarf in nervousness.

My ANBU was at the stove, staring down into the wok in concentration. He said nothing about what had passed between us in the bedroom, but only asked, off-handily, if I could tell him if the mushrooms were tender enough.

“ANBU- _san_ ,” I said, looking down. “Could you leave the food for a moment?”

He turned to me, wooden spoon in hand, concern in every line. Before he made the full rotation, I had dropped to the tiles in a full bow, lower than what I’d heard the ANBU did before their commanders or even the _Hokage_.

“Kitō,” he said, losing his grip on the spoon, which clattered to the floor, “don’t.”

I sat up from my full, prostrate bow, but remained on my knees. “I- I owe you an explanation, ANBU- _san_. Last night, I- It’s been some time since I have-” I choked on the words. “But it wasn’t that I couldn’t stand.” My hands fluttered over my thighs. “Yesterday, three ANBU died in the hospital because I couldn’t save them.”

He started and I dropped my eyes to my hands, resting in my lap.

“I… am _Iryō-nin_ , and we live by a set of rules.”

“Four, I heard there were four.” His voice was faint, and I was sure he was wondering which of his friends it was that had died.

“Yes, there are four. But mostly we live by three, as only one of our number is allowed the fourth. I… went out last night because I intended to break the second clause.”

“Break the second clause.” His voice had become hoarse, as if sensing something more than death would follow. I clenched my fingers tight, trying not to cry.

“No medic ninja shall ever stand on the front lines. It seems a simple rule. Medic _nin_ can’t fight, so they shouldn’t be in a position of danger, but… it means more than that. _Iryō-nin_ are trained to avoid becoming injured in anyway because, if we are hurt, there will be no one to heal our fellow _shinobi_. But-”

My fingers were trembling. _I_ was trembling. “But… sometimes we need things. Sometimes we need to… relieve ourselves. The Mystical Palm Technique.” I mimed a sign over my thighs. “Doubles as a means to heal a wound and a way to make precise incisions.” Back in my lap, my hands rubbed at my thighs, my fingers scraping over the fabric of my pants. “Not deep, but enough to bleed.”

“You cut yourself.” The words were distant. Strained.

I winced. “Many of us in the _Iryō Butai_ do. It… is… a way of relieving stress.”

“You cut yourself.” His voice was louder but filled with a distinct horror. I could not bring myself to look up at him.

“I heal myself after, ANBU- _san_.”

“Those scars.”

I winced again because he _had_ seen my thighs on occasion. “It’s alright, ANBU- _san_. I- I know how to do it carefully.”

“Alright!” He was on the floor with me, his hands on my shoulders, his masked face close to mine. “You were going to hurt yourself! Kitō, when did you do this last?”

“S-some time ago, ANBU- _san_. I only do it alone… And you’ve just been here so much.”

He groaned and I was suddenly wrapped in the Relentless Hug of Doom, my chest pressed to his. “I’ve been here so much. I keep coming and I keep taking and taking without giving back.”

“Haa!” I gasped the sound, struggling and thrashing in his hold. “No, ANBU- _san_! Don’t say that!” My efforts to break loose were pointless. All I could do was grip his shirt with my trembling hand. “I like that you are here, ANBU- _san_.”

“I just want to be kind to you, Kitō.”

His body was so stiff, so intently _hard_ , his grip steel, but so needy. I wanted to bring my arms around him, but his hold locked my arms to my sides, so all I could manage was to raise my hands to his sides, above his hips.

“You are nice to me, ANBU- _san_.”

“I want to be nicer to you.”

“ANBU- _san_.”

I laid my head on his shoulder, letting him hold me. My heart ached. I wasn’t sure how else to comfort the man, so I let him cling on me and I rested in his embrace.

After some time, he stirred. Restless. “Do you still want to do it, Kitō?”

I squirmed a bit in his arms. Unwilling to admit, though he hadn’t meant to, he had hurt me somehow in his ministrations of the night before and I was sore and I was happy for it. “No, ANBU- _san_ ,” I murmured.

Whatever further he might have said I was able to curtail for a good reason. “A-ANBU- _san_! The food, ANBU- _san_!”

The heavy scent of burnt and burning mushrooms and meat hung in the air. As if just scenting it, the ANBU sprang up and began frantically dancing about the stove. It took me somewhat longer to stand and assist him. I _was_ sore. And somewhat stiff. And drained somewhere down within me.

What the ANBU had made was unusable, but together we started over. The other man was quiet through the meal, but when the dishes were left in the strainer, he put his hand over mine.

“Kitō.”

“Yes, ANBU- _san_?”

“Do you have to go back to the hospital today?”

“No, ANBU- _san_.”

He nodded. “What would you like to do today? What would make you feel better?”

Struck dumb by the question, I stared at him. “I- ANBU- _san_ , I-” Shuffling from foot to foot, I looked away from him. Deeply I knew there was no way to appease him but to express myself honestly. “I don’t know. I’ve… never… considered it.”

“Never-” He broke off, shaking his head, obviously perturbed for some reason I couldn’t grasp. “What do you like to do, Kitō?”

“Read,” I offered.

He sighed. “You don’t make this easy.”

Then I was squeaking, as the man swept me up in his arms, like I weighed nothing. My ANBU carried me to my couch and set me there before kneeling in front of me and taking my hands.

“I want to be nice to you, Kitō.”

I felt myself flushing. As far as I could, I let my face sink into the folds of my scarf. “You are nice to me, ANBU- _san_ ,” I repeated, muttering into the fabric.

Another sigh. “So you say.” He sat by me. Softly nudged me to lean on him. I found myself tucked against his side, with his hand on my hip. “Are you tired, Kitō?”

“Yes, a little.”

He grumbled wordless, aggravated sounds, and toppled me onto his lap. I yelped in surprise, but my ANBU only settled his hands lightly on me before dragging the throw from off the back of the couch and over me.

“More than a little, I’ll bet. Sleep for now. Please.”

Without a word, I curled next to him and closed my eyes. It was odd to be taken care of, but if it was what would make my ANBU feel well, I would endure it.

I was drifting between sleep and waking before I knew it. Sometime later, I woke entirely to find myself alone, but it wasn’t long before my ANBU returned. He came with food. Any and all food I had ever shown a liking for. And books. He dropped a drift of them into my lap and commanded me to read.

He would let me do little but rest the remainder of the day. Instead, he pampered me, feeding me and providing me with anything he thought I could possibly need. And talking to me. Somehow, the man had me rambling about my favorite books, and those I particularly wanted, without my knowing how he’d done it.

And, when the light slipped from the sky, he climbed into bed with me and held me till I slept soundly.

After, my ANBU came no less often, but his attitude was changed. He was more watchful, attentive, oddly tender. Even when he was not present, I would find little signs of him. Some flowers on the kitchen table, fresh cut. Fruit on my bedside table. And startlingly, bringing stinging tears to my eyes when my uncertain fingers unwrapped it, a copy of Jiraiya’s first book: _Tales of A Gutsy Ninja_.

I clutched the book to my chest and wept uncontrollably, glad my ANBU was nowhere to be seen. Where he had got the silly, little loved, and unheard-of thing, I couldn’t guess. I only vaguely remembered telling him I longed for it, yet there it was. In my hands. It didn’t matter the thing was a dog-eared mess, only that my ANBU had searched for it and found it for me.

When next I saw him, I thanked him profusely. He only radiated happiness like a hidden smile and asked if he could sleep near me. I agreed with unusual enthusiasm and surprised us both by throwing myself into his arms.

“Thank you, ANBU- _san_!”

I went red in the face and started stammering, but my ANBU only offered me a smile, more felt than seen under his mask, and said, “I’m glad you like it, Kitō.”

Then he took my hand and took me to bed. I squirmed a little but settled into the softness of the blankets and his arms. He held me light, for once, red and white mask close to my face, that feeling of contentment radiating from him. I expected he would say something, but he did not. Only falling asleep with his hand on my chest, as if memorizing my heartbeat.

His actions were inexplicable to me. Why should my beating heart or joyfulness be of concern to him?

“ANBU- _san_ ,” I whispered, but he didn’t stir, and I nuzzled into him and slept.

His unaccounted kindnesses continued, and all I could do was continue on, healing him and soothing him and showing him worthless, little domestic things. Things which could in on way repay what I owed him for his generosity, yet which I felt compelled to offer all the same. Like a child offering a drawing to the adult he fancied, knowing it was far from perfect, but having nothing else to give.

Yet, my ANBU did not seem to mind the poorness of my offerings. Quite the opposite, he appeared fascinated. He was particularly enthralled with my knitting. I presented him with a scarf, like my own, in an embarrassed return for his own gifts, and he ran it through his hands, as if it were a marvelous thing, and asked me sincerely how I’d done it. I showed him and his fingers slid over mine on the needles. Eyes intent and focused behind his mask.

“Teach me.”

“Eh! Ahh…” I fumbled around for words, astonished such an elite _shinobi_ would be so mesmerized by the weaving of a series of pretty knots, but I would not refuse. Anything he asked, I would have gladly given.

And soon I was sitting, pressed to his side, knee flush with his, fingers entangled with his, intently instructing him. He learned as if it were mastering signs, and, within days, offered me a pair of slightly misshapen gloves, which I had to admit were better than my first attempt. Still, his next attempt was even better.

And soon it was not uncommon for me to return to my apartment and find him sitting cross-ledged in the center of my floor, surrounded by, and often, enmeshed in, a tangle of yarn. Because, no matter how he improved, he could not manage to keep from tangling the strings. Once, I walked in, exhausted and pale, to see him glowering at the mass, attempting to unwind strands, which had somehow gotten wrapped around his mask.

I could not keep from laughing behind my hand, weariness and burning need forgotten for a moment.

But my need couldn’t, ultimately, be ignored or passed over.

I lost a team of _chunin_ , their _Iryō-nin_ following the rules of the medic _nin_ to his final breath, holding on to be the last of his team to die. Though it was not the end of my shift when the boy shut his eyes under my care, my captain relieved me. Holding me by the shoulder, he told me to go home and take care of myself.

Take care of myself. No more than that. As if he didn’t know what the words meant. Yet, I couldn’t deny he was right. My body and mind craved a sting, which would bring relief, demanded attention, and hungered for the sharpness, which would give me a release I’d too long avoided.

My apartment was empty when I forced open my door, and I thought that a mercy, a small grace from the _kami_ , if there were such beings. I had exerted myself to get home, running across the rooftops, making passerby look up in surprise, but, within my own walls, I slowed. Quiet and methodical, as always, I stripped down to my briefs before settling onto my bathroom floor.

I lost track of how long I sat there, once I’d begun. I only knew my fingers had gone oddly nerveless and I was crying it hurt so much. Not the cuts. My skin spilt under my hands, under the Mystical Palm Technique, and that, too, was a mercy. A thing I could comprehend and control. Unlike the face of the young _Iryō-nin_ swimming up through my mind.

With a hiccupping sob, I pressed a hand, slick with my own blood, to my face and wept into it. I didn’t realize I was trembling, didn’t realize my ANBU was standing in the door, stunned, only knew everything was a wreck and I couldn’t heal it.

“Kitō!”

My ANBU was on the floor with me, his hands and knees smearing my blood on the tiles before painting my forearms red when he gripped me. “Oh, _kami_! Oh, bloody fuck! Kitō!”

“ANBU- _san_.” My words were thick and slurred, and my tongue felt heavy, as it had the morning after I’d first met him, when I’d been _chakra_ exhausted. Only, I wasn’t _chakra_ exhausted and I wondered what it could be making me sound that way.

“Shit! Fuck!” he swore. “You need to stop, Kitō!”

I shook my head, tears blinding me, and he pulled me into a tight embrace, so I found myself weeping against his shoulder. “No. I- I just need a little more. Please, ANBU- _san_.”

His breathing was heavy in my ear, his words strained when he spoke. “No, Kitō. I- I need you to heal yourself. I can’t do it, I’m useless.”

“No, ANBU- _san_ ,” I groaned, struggling limply against his overwhelming strength. “Don’t say that, ANBU- _san_.”

“It’s true, I can’t even help one man.”

It was his pain which broke me, forcing me to give in. I moaned into his shoulder, feeling the pain of loss. “Alright, ANBU- _san_. I’ll do it.”

He eased me back against the wall, and away from him, to give me access to my legs, only it was harder to do than I thought. There were more cuts than I remembered making, and I was so tired when it was done. So tired I was gasping through my tears.

My ANBU scooped me up and went with me into the shower, stripping me and washing the blood off me, as I had done for him that second night. After, he carried me, swathed in towels, to my bed and held me like a lifeline.

“Tell me what to do, Kitō,” he all but pleaded. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Nothing, ANBU- _san_ ,” I murmured. “Is fine.”

“Fine!” His voice shook. “I find you sitting in a pool of blood and you say it’s fine. I thought I was going to lose you.”

The words made no sense. I didn’t understand how the thought of losing me could trouble him so, but he was hurting, and I instinctually reached to comfort. Cocooned as I was in the towels he’d wrapped me in, I couldn’t hold him, so I pressed my face to his chest.

“It is alright, ANBU- _san_. I can’t die like that. I have to die in accordance with the rules of the _Iryō-nin_.”

He stiffened beside me. “What are you talking about?”

I did not want to speak the words, did not want to let them passed my lips, but he said my name soft and low and tucked some of my short, damp hair back from my face, and they spilled out. One after another, the words rained out of me with my tears, and I told him about the team of _chunin_ and the young _Iryō-nin_ I had lost and how he had followed the third rule, how he had hung onto the last and panted up at me with glazed eyes, “Not until they’re gone, not until they’re gone.”

And, shuddering, I told him the truth of how medic _nin_ died. “The third clause says no medic ninja shall ever die until they are the last of their platoon. So, I can’t die, ANBU- _san_. Not until I’m sent out on some mission and am the last of my team because I could not save those entrusted to me. Until I fail.”

“Fail.” His voice was satin and sad, and I was ashamed to look at him, but he took my chin in his thumb and forefinger and tilted my face back. “Kitō, do you think every _Iryō-nin_ will die a failure, or just you?”

“ANBU- _san_ , I-”

He shook his head, not letting me finish. “Do you think that medic _nin_ you treated this morning failed? Kitō, when a _shinobi_ fulfills their duty to _Konoha_ to the last breath, we don’t call that failure. We call that bravery and we write their name on the Memorial Stone. But more than that, I know you, Kitō. No matter how you die, you will never be a failure.”

I swallowed but could say nothing, caught in the intensity of his eyes looking out at me.

“Kitō.” He whispered my name and both his hands slid up my face to cup it, as if it were a most precious thing. His covered face moved close to mine, then he was groaning. “I wish I didn’t have to wear this mask.”

“Eh! Ahh!” His actions and unknown emotion made me stumble over the words I said next. “Y-you don’t have to, ANBU- _san_. You can blindfold me.”

He shut his eyes and shook his head, groaning again. “I don’t want to blindfold you, Kitō.”

The admission left me at a loss. He wanted to take his mask off? “But I can’t see your face, ANBU- _san_.”

He sighed. “I know.”

The cool, smooth porcelain of his mask was leaned up against me, so we would be laying with or foreheads pressed together, if his face was uncovered. We stayed like that for some time, then my ANBU stirred restlessly.

“Kitō.”

I’d been sliding toward sleep, after my exertions, but the urgency in the utterance of my name brought me back to waking. “Yes, ANBU- _san_?”

“The next time you feel the need to cut yourself, wait for me.”

“W-wait for you, ANBU- _san_?”

“Yes.” He clutched at me, Relentless Hug of Dooming my cocooned form. “We’ll find a way to help you feel better where you won’t have to hurt yourself. Please, Kitō.”

My throat was tight, choked. He was pleading with me. This powerful, elite _shinobi_ , who should have no need to beg for anything, was pleading with me, as he had on my bathroom floor. The shear helplessness of his imploring me was too much to bear, and I found myself rubbing my face on his chest, both to remove my tears from his sight and to comfort him the only way my situation allowed.

“Alright, ANBU- _san_.” The words were strangled from a throat no longer allowing me the passage of air. I agreed knowing I could not refuse, and not knowing how I was going to fulfill the agreement. I ached with it. The need and the loss of relief and the knowledge I’d, in some way, cut myself off from the rest of my kind. In the giving up of something integral to us.

My ANBU didn’t know it. He only knew I was weeping and struggling for breath.

“Kitō!

He was scrambling up, unwinding me from the towels he’d wrapped me in. Somehow, in some strange manner I didn’t understand, I found myself sitting in his lap, my legs around his waist, my arms around his shoulders, while he rubbed my back. Both of us completely uncaring I was nude and he in nothing but his mask, short pants, and undershirt.

“Breathe, Kitō! Just breathe!”

“T-trying! I’m t-trying, ANBU- _san_!”

His hands were hot on my skin and soothing along my spine. His mask cool in the curve of my neck. His words intelligible and nonsensical in my ear, until I calmed and hung limp in his arms.

_“Natsuhiboshi, naze akai?_

_Yuubi kanashii yume wo mita._

_Naite hanashita._

_Akai me yo._

_Natsuhiboshi, naze mayou?_

_Kieta warashi wo sagashiteru_

_Dakara kanashii yume wo miru.”_

“Is pretty,” I murmured, my eyes drooping closed.

He grunted. “Friend used to sing it.”

The way he said it told me where the friend had gone. “’M sorry, ANBU- _san_.”

He shifted, bringing his hands down to my hips. “It’s alright. Do you want to sleep, Kitō?”

“Yes, please, ANBU- _san_.”

My ANBU used his hold on my hips to push me forward, off his lap and lay me on my side. He pulled the blanket up to our chins and kept a light hand on my ribs, until I fell into dreams with my hands fisted under my chin.

It wasn’t until morning I realized he’d got up again after I was asleep and cleaned my bathroom. My face was hot with embarrassment when I left the room to find him. I attempted to apologize, but he wouldn’t hear it any more than he would allow me to do anything beyond rest. He cooked for me then sat me on the couch with a book in my hands and a cup of strong tea at my side. When I was firmly ensconced, and my apartment ruthlessly cleaned, he sat by me and knitted, while I read.

The quietness of our time was only interrupted by my ANBU’s typical yarn related mishaps. “Ah, Kitō?” He said. “Would you mind?”

I lowered my book to find him with his knitting in his lap, glowering out of the holes in his mask at the strand of wool wrapped and knotted around his wrist. As if it would help unwind it, he was aimlessly waving his arm.

Catching his hand, I started picking at the knots. “I don’t know how you always do this, ANBU- _san_.”

“If I knew, I’d stop.” The words were droll, but the look in the eyes peering out at me made me wonder if he meant it. Unable to meet those piercing, affectionate eyes, I let my burning face sink into my scarf and bent over his wrist, working the knots.

I expected he would stay the night with me, but when I emerged from the bathroom, blurry eyed, after my nightly routine, I found him sitting on the edge of my bed in full ANBU gear, his sward hilt sticking up over his shoulder.

“ANBU- _san_ ,” I said with unease.

“I have a mission, Kitō,” he returned, looking at his feet. “Will you be alright?”

“Yes, ANBU- _san_ ,” I murmured. Sensing his anxiety, I went to the bed and sat by him. “Really, ANBU- _san_ , I will be alright.”

Unexpectedly, he hugged me. “I promise I’ll be back, Kitō.”

I didn’t know what to say to the assurance, so I only leaned into the embrace, hoping he’d be safe.

My ANBU’s absence was so long, I began to truly fear he _wouldn’t_ be back, when, out of a raging thunderstorm, he came through my window wringing wet. He had several new injuries, but it was clear he’d had them tended to at the hospital before coming to see me.

“I just want to be near you, Kitō,” he said, and we went to my bed, where I held him until he had stopped shivering.

After, something seemed different in my ANBU’s demeaner. He was both edgy and exceptionally tender, as if something were nagging at him, pulling him in two directions. He would avoid all contact with my person one visit and cuddle against me, as if his life depended on it, the next.

When I asked him what was wrong he avoided the question. Baulking and trying to escape out my window.

I caught him around the chest, knowing I didn’t have the strength to hold him but knowing, also, he _let_ me hold him. “Please, ANBU- _san_!” I gasped. “Tell me what is wrong! Just tell me what it is, and I’ll make it right, ABNU- _san_! I’ll do anything you need!”

He hesitated, then slid back into my room. The man pressed me to his chest, hand on the back of my head.

“I know, Kitō, I know.”

But he wouldn’t tell me what it was.

Still, he stopped avoiding touching me. If sometimes his hands shook, it was the only indication I had something was not completely right and he was not wholly at ease. At least, I was reassured I had done nothing wrong. Yet, it worried me I could do nothing more than continue being kind to my ANBU and hoping he would explain. I was a healer, and it was difficult to see an injury and not be able to do something.

I did not expect the explanation when it came.

Summer had taken a turn toward fall and the leaves were burning on the trees. There was the beginning of a chill in the air and the whiff of a scent that set my heart restless to be out of the village and on a mission, as I had not been in over a year. I had the day free from the hospital, but there was no sign of my ANBU, so I spent the hours walking and laying in the faded sunlight with a book.

By the time I got back to my apartment, my body was exhausted with that particular, pleasant sensation of tiredness which came of being outside all day, and I fell, headlong and fully clothed, into my bed. I was asleep before I’d fully nuzzled my face into the pillow and brought it to my chest to clutch. It was near midnight when I half woke with a groan and turned to find my ANBU with me.

“ANBU- _san_ ,” I slurred, abandoning the pillow to reach for him.

On a normal night, he would reach back for me, drawing me close and resting his chin on my head. But he lay on his side, still, his breathing ragged. The knowing brought me wide awake.

“ANBU- _san_. What’s wrong, ANBU- _san_?” My hands danced over his chest, looking for injuries, my eyes roved, looking for the same. My face heated when I discovered the source of his discomfort. My ANBU was aroused, his pants tented and taunt.

“Oh, ANBU- _san_ ,” I said, and swallowed, burying my face in his neck to hide the color there.

He only remained laying still, that heavy, torn breathing in my ear. And I felt a physical pain because here was something I could do nothing about. Only… couldn’t I?

I bit my lip and pressed my face harder to him, to further hide my flaring blush at the thought I _could_ do something, and the rising memory of what he’d done for me and my notion of what ANBU might do for each other on missions. My fingers slid down his chest and belly to stop at his waist band, even as my eyes slid closed.

“I c-can, ANBU- _san_. If you want me to.” The words out, all I could do was clench my eyes and teeth and wait for him to respond.

He stiffened beside me, his breath hitching in my ear. “Kitō.”

Summoning what courage I possessed, which I normally reserved for missions, I brushed a finger along the hard length trapped in his pants. “Do… You want me to? I- I don’t mind, ANBU- _san_.”

His unsteady breathing became a gasp and then a moan in my ear at the contact. His hands went to my shoulders with enough force I had to keep myself from wincing and his body arched into my touch. “Kitō, please.” A beat, a pant. “Yes.”

The assent given, I had to apply will to my trembling fingers in order to undo his pants and ease them open just enough to free him. We both shivered when it was done. He at the rush of cool air on his flushed skin, and I because I had to wrap my fingers around him.

I tried not to think about the feel of him under my fingers, tried to remain distant, only remembering what he’d done for me and what I did for myself, when needed. But I found I couldn’t. Both because I wanted him to feel relief and I feared being inadequate to his needs, and because I couldn’t ignore how his breathing came apart and his body moved under my touch.

But more… More than that, the feel of him in my hand elicited in me a response I hadn’t anticipated. A swell of arousal I hadn’t looked for. He felt _good_ in my hand. Good as I pumped up and down, his hardness long and sure against my palm, causing me to grow hard in turn.

My ANBU thrashed, arching back and into me. His thigh nudged between my legs, against my crotch, and he knew. I moaned. Both at the understanding he _knew_ and because his leg felt well where it was.

“Kitō.” The hands he had locked around my shoulders came down to my hips, his thumbs rubbing slow circles over my pelvis. Lower. “Can I?” The question was breathless.

I moved my face against him, my teeth clenched again. Half wanting him to, half wondering if this too might be something ANBU did for each other. A mutual relief where and when there was no other option. “You c-can, ANBU- _san_.”

His hands were quick and sure, pushing my pants down and taking me in a grasp that was anything but mechanical or detached. Instead, his caress was full of undeniable passion and desire, and then we were both panting and shuddering into each other’s hands. I was lost in it. My ANBU was not.

“Kitō.” He groaned my name as he had once cupped my face, as if it were a precious thing. And his irresistible hold was bringing us closer together and he was doing something which surprised me and which I didn’t understand at first. He was reaching around me and using a finger to find my entrance.

That digit chased slow circles over my rim for a few moments, massaging, but not penetrating, and, though I caught my breath, my movements slowing on him, I said nothing to stop him. Prompting my ANBU to ask, “Kitō, is this alright?”

There was no way for me to pretend the question was anything other than what it was. No way to imagine it to be anything different than a request to have sex with me. I struggled with it, uncertain despite my own arousal and physical demands. Yet… _He’s my ANBU. My ANBU…_ There was a note of possessiveness and tenderness in the thought, which had nothing to do with healing.

Whining at what I was about to do, I nuzzled into him hard. “Y-yes.”

His breath escaped him, and his heart fluttered, even as the part of him in my hand twitched. Sure signs he had not expected me to agree. “Kitō,” he repeated, finger sinking into me.

I made a slight, protesting sound at the invasion, but also found myself moving into the sensation. Gasping and pressing down onto the finger.

“A-ANBU- _san_.”

He grunted and then I was on my back and his voice was soothing, a balm against my lingering worry. “I have you, Kitō.”

That finger moved in me and my already heavy breathing went irregular. It was all I could do to start my hand moving on him again, but I did not want to let go. Still, strange, little noise came out of me and my body arched.

My ANBU huffed in a breath at my reaction, and then he was making an articulation of frustration, masked face coming to rest in the center of my chest. “I wish I could kiss you, Kitō. You deserve to be kissed.”

“Ngh! Y-you can, ANBU- _san_. I c-can be blindfolded.”

His head snapped up. “Kitō, no! I don’t want to blindfold you!”

But my hands were already lifting the fabric of my scarf to my eyes and tying it in secure medical knots. My heart was throbbing, half in fear, half in an odd elation. _Can’t see… I can’t see what he’s going to do…_

With it done, my ANBU offered no more resistance. There was the sharp click and clatter of porcelain thrown on wood floor. Then his lips were crushed down on mine, hot and insistent.

My ANBU’s kiss opened my mouth and a second finger opened me further elsewhere. I moaned and he licked into my mouth, until I was lightheaded from lack of air and dizzy with it all. The swell of elation in me only growing, as my ANBU began devouring my neck, the hand not occupied inside of me removing my hands from him, so he could pull my shirt up over my head. I assisted him, as it was what he wanted, allowing him to plant kisses all down my chest and over my stomach.

I moaned, yet again, when he did another unexpected thing, taking my member is his hand and running his tongue over my slit. My ANBU licked down my length, and a different sound came out of me, something wild and needy and terrified. He lifted away at that, leaving me laying with trembling legs, unable to see and wondering in desperation what he would do next. I could feel my skin flushed all over and I could feel kisses on my neck. Feel his free hand laid along my face while his lips met mine in a soft way.

A groan. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long, Kitō.”

The words threw me more than the feel of his fingers coming out of me. My ANBU had wanted to kiss me? Huffing in breath, I nudged my face into his hand. “A-ANBU- _san_?”

“Do you want me to stop, Kitō?”

“N-no, ANBU- _san_.”

Another soft kiss was placed on my lips. Then his hand was taken away and I felt him kneeling over me, body stretching up, as I heard the rustle of fabric coming off him. My hands went up to trace his hip bones, his flat stomach, to search toward his chest and the scars I knew so well.

As if it were an invitation, he bent over me, allowing my fingers to crawl over and examine him, while he aligned himself with me. “Kitō…” he asked again.

“It’s alright, ANBU- _san_.” I could feel I was shivering, could feel the hardness of him against my prepped entrance and all along my body. And I needed traction. A hold, a grip. I bit my lip and bought my hands to his shoulders. “Y-you can.”

His hand went to my hair, curling in it, before he pushed forward, slowly but surely taking me. I tossed my head back against his hand, trying not to make a sound. The feeling of it was one of fullness, almost heaviness. Not natural, but not unpleasant.

One thrust and it all came apart. My poor attempt at keeping a handle on myself, at holding my head above water. All gone. The ANBU knew where he was aiming and hit up against a bundle of nerves I knew, medically, I possessed. But knowing the technicalities of a thing in theory was far different from experiencing it in practice. I cried out, my legs automatically going up to grip on his ass with all the strength I had, and fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise.

My ANBU held my head firm but gently with one hand, while he slid in and out of me, and his other hand grasped me again, moving in time to his thrusts. Each forward motion eliciting a little whine from me. My head rang and I wanted it suddenly never to end, for my ANBU never to stop and to never see again. Heat built and burst in me, all through my lower regions and my poor, dizzy head.

I didn’t realize I’d climaxed, until I found I was lying limp under my ANBU. My body sagging and my eyes struggling to focus behind the folds of my scarf. He kissed my face. Skimmed my lips. Body still on mine. Inside mine.

A small trickle of warmth between us, where we were joined, told me he had come too, and I felt a contentment at that. Broken by his words.

“Oh, you’re good, you’re so good, Kitō.”

A frightful blush of embarrassment claimed my face. I turned it to the side but could go no further or hide better, as entangled as I was with him. A kiss on my jaw was some comfort. Then none at all, as his lips moved under my jaw, tilting my head up. Like he was tasting me and savoring me.

“A-ANBU- _san_.”

He stopped. Tucked some damp hair back off my face. “Do you want to clean up, Kitō?”

“Yes.” My voice was a squeak. But he was gentle. A last, quick kiss and an, “Okay,” and he was backing out of me. The emptiness both a relief and a deep sense of loss.

“Stay here a minute.” His hand rested on my chest. “I’ll get my mask.”

 _Wanting_ to wash and having the ability to do so proved to be different matters. I had not had sex in a good while, much less as we’d done it, and my muscles were watery. Once my blindfold was discarded, my ANBU had to practically carry me into the shower and found it necessary to support me under the water.

It was just as well. He wished to be sure I was properly cleaned out and pressed me against the wall until it was done with the quick efficiency I expected of ANBU. Then he just held me up in the spray, until I asked to lie down.

The bed was soft and rumpled from our… activities. Laying there, I flushed all over again. Especially with how my ANBU was looking at me as though I was the sweetest thing he’d ever found.

“How are you, Kitō?” he asked, a finger tracing my jaw.

“Tired, ANBU- _san_ ,” I murmured.

“Sore?” he pressed.

“Little.” It was a reluctant admission.

He nodded. “That’s normal, considering…” My clear discomfiture made him let the rest trail away.

Considering I’d obviously never done that before…

“I’ve wanted… you for some time, Kitō.”

If his desire to kiss me had left me off balance, this admission made no sense at all. My ANBU… had wanted me? He had not been randomly aroused, but… wanted me?

Things clicked in my mind. The shift in him and his avoidance of touching me. _He had wanted me!_

And not wished to press.

I swallowed. “A-ANBU- _san_. Why, ANBU- _san_? I’m-”

_Not much of anything…_

He didn’t answer. Just ran his fingers over my lips. “I’m really sorry for the blindfold, Kitō.”

“D-don’t be, ANBU- _san_.” More heat in my cheeks, not wanting to admit it but needing to reassure him. “I-it made it better, ANBU- _san_.”

“Better?”

I whined, covering my face with my hands. My ANBU caught them and eased them away.

“You enjoyed it. Not seeing.”

I nodded.

“That’s perfectly fine.” He was silent a moment. “Can I kiss you more before you sleep?”

The request was soft and melancholy, and I had no thought of refusal. My scarf was still on the bed and it was easy to tie it over my eyes. Then my ANBU lay by me and decorated me with subtle kisses, which chased me down into sleep.

I woke on my back with my legs spread and my arms squeezing a pillow tight over my chest. A groan rippled out my throat when I tried to move. The mild soreness of the night had given way to tearing stiffness and weakness. My legs felt the way they had after running all the way back to _Konoha_ during my last mission.

And there was a line of drool running down my face.

I swiped the drool away and reached out a groping hand for my bedmate. “ANBU- _san_.” The other half of my bed was empty and cold, and I sat up with a start. “ANBU- _san_! Are you here, ANBU- _san_?”

There was no answer, but I still hesitated to take off the blindfold I wore. I felt all around my bed, to be sure he was not asleep there, then moved about my room and into the bathroom. My ANBU was nowhere to be found.

Only after confirming this did I untie the knots holding my scarf. The light was over-bright on my eyes, but the shadows told me it was still early morning.

“ANBU- _san_ …”

My voice was a bit devastated. He seldom left without saying good-bye, yet he had chosen to do so the morning after taking me in my own bed and telling me he’d wanted me for a long time. After being so tender and kissing me to sleep.

“ANBU- _san_ …”

It was chance my lowering eyes caught on a paper on my nightstand. Blinking, I picked it up. My ANBU’s scrawling, almost illegible handwriting covered the front of the sheet. I frowned at it. The man had the handwriting of a medical _nin_ and I pitied the man who had to read his mission reports.

_Kitō, I’m sorry. I have a mission, but I’ll talk to you about last night as soon as I get back. You deserve better than a note, hell, you deserve better than me, but I promise I’ll make this right when I get back._

_ANBU-_ san

Of course, he would have a mission. There were few times he came to my bed in full gear when he _did not_ have a mission. And he had been in his gear, his weapons leaning in a corner.

My fingers skimmed his words. _You deserve better than a note… better than me…_

“ANBU- _san_ …”

There was nothing I could do but carry on with my day. Only it was not so easy, and by midday my fellow _Iryō-nin_ were asking me why my face was so red. My emotions were in a tangle and it was no wonder I took refuge in an exam room to think.

“ANBU- _san_ ,” I groaned, coming back the present moment, with no more clarity than before my reminiscence.

It would be easier if I knew when he would return, but there was no way I could know. No way to _do_ anything. Only wait. Wait and remember the slide of him inside me.

I was biting my lips behind my hands when a knock resounded on the exam room door.

“Kitō? Kitō, are you in there?”

“Ahh! Yes, Hakui- _senpai_!”

“Are you alright?”

The flick of my ANBU’s tongue over my slit came to mind, and I very much wanted to say, no I’m not alright Hakui- _senpai_. I’m fantasizing about a man whose face I’ve never seen. But that would prove to make things difficult, so I only told my fellow medic I was fine and proceeded with my day.

Several hours, and several minor surgeries later, I was dragging my feet out the door of the _Konoha Byōin_ with my head down. Reviewing the whole of the night before, yet again, with flushing face and distracted mind. I did not regret what had happened. No. On the contrary, I truly had enjoyed it, and wanted…

Wanted to do it again.

I wanted to have sex with… My ANBU… again.

My ANBU.

“Be safe, ANBU- _san_ ,” I whispered to nothing.

My feet would have carried me home, but Hakui’s gasping shouts of my name stopped me before I could leave the hospital’s grounds.

“Kitō! Kitō! I wouldn’t go if I were you!”

I turned. “Hakui- _senpai_?”

She came to a stop with her hands braced on her knees, panting. “We just got a whole team of _jonin_ delivered! They’re pretty bad, and we won’t have enough surgeons without you!”

The words spurred me. I was sprinting back the way I’d come before Hakui could stand straight. Jonin _. A team of_ jonin _._ Kami _, let me save them!_

No more than I was in the door before my captain grabbed my arm and practically threw me at a gurney. “That one’s yours, Kitō!”

“Yes, captain!”

My eyes and hands were already assessing the man on the bloodstained sheets, only half aware of my fellow medics around me, telling me his vitals, his name, his suspected injuries. I took the information in but focused on the man. My _jonin_. The man whose life was in my hands.

I knew him, of course. Everyone did. Kakashi Hatake was a hard man not to know. His silver hair and masked face were a common sight in the streets of _Konoha_. So much so, even I had passed him often with a little nervous smile and a, “Hello, Hatake- _sama_.”

At that moment his eyes were closed and his breathing sporadic and wet. His gear had mostly been removed and his chest and torso were bare, covered only in scars and fresh wounds. One in his gut I judged to be the worst. The thing I needed to undo if he were to live.

I laid my hand on his chest, sending searching _chakra_ into him, to read his internal injuries. And paused, my normal, compulsive concentration disrupted. My heart fluttering in my chest, as if turned to butterfly wings. I had never laid my hands on Kakashi Hatake before. Only… I had. I knew all of my ANBU’s scars. I had healed several of the injuries which had formed them. Had traced my fingers over them in the night, while my eyes were blinded and my ANBU had stretched me open. Had memorized them over a thousand moments strung through dozens of nights.

Kakashi Hatake was my ANBU. It was Kakashi Hatake who had crushed his lips down over mine in the dark of my bedroom. Those lips splattered with blood which had sung me down to sleep. I had taken Kakashi of the _sharingan_ into my home and eased his aches.

My hand trembled on his chest. There was no doubt, no disbelief. I’d known for years injured ANBU were often delivered to the hospital as simple _shinobi_ to protect their identities. It was easy to know my ANBU was delivered to me for this reason. Only his identity had not been safe. I knew him, and it would have to be dealt with.

“Kitō!” My captain’s voice cut through my moment of reverie. “Get that man to surgery!”

“Yes, captain!” My lips began forming the words of commands to my assisting medic _nin_ , but my thoughts were elsewhere. They were on every moment I had spent with the man whose heart beat sporadic thumps below my hand. On every touch and every word and a simple promise in scrawled ink.

_I’ll make this right…_

Right.

There was nothing to right. No wrong committed. Only a man whose life deserved to go on.

 _I will not let you die, ANBU-_ san _. Not even if I have to die to keep you alive…_

It almost seemed I would. I was low on _chakra_ when I began the surgery, and there was no one to replace me. Not that I would have allowed them to do so if there was.

After hours working to reconstruct my ANBU’s damaged organs, he lay breathing soft in unconsciousness, and I hovered at the border of _chakra_ exhaustion. But I was not done and would not allow my body to give out as it wished. After disentangling myself from my captain and fellow _Iryō-nin_ , I employed _shunshin_ to transport myself back to my apartment. I showered and changed into casual clothes and forced food into myself, then transported back to the _Konoha Byōin_ and my ANBU.

My arrival, directly in his room, startled a low ranking medical _nin_ checking his status, but she calmed when she saw it was me, and made no argument about my staying. When she was gone, I pulled a chair close to Kakahsi’s side and pondered a while.

I’d had sex with Kakashi Hatake and wanted to do it again. My face heated, but I pushed on with my thoughts. I’d taken Kakashi Hatake, Kakashi Friend Killer, Kakashi of the _Sharingan_ , the Copy _Nin_ , man of a thousand _jutsus_ into my home and eased his pains without knowing his name or face. A thing not to be taken lightly, both because of his fame and his infamy. He was equal parts revered and defamed.

But looking at that quiet face locked in slumber, I knew none of that mattered. I would have done the same for anyone who had stumbled through my window, I would have healed even an enemy _shinobi_ , knowing he’d slit my throat for it. Kakashi Hatake, whatever else he might be, was my ANBU. The man who’d spent days and months with me, the man who’d held me while I bled, the man who’d kissed me, as though his life depended on it.

Sitting in the silent room, where only our intermingled breaths sounded, I knew only one thing mattered, and I lay my head on his chest and whispered, “I’ll be near you, until you wake, ANBU- _san_.” Exhausted as I was, I tipped into sleep like that. His steady heartbeat in my ear, his hand in mine.

Though, doubtless, my fellow _Iryō-nin_ thought this a most unusual thing for me to do, they didn’t disturb me. Leaving me to wake with the morning sun filtering in through the blinds. I was surprised, as I blinked my eyes, to discover I’d been covered with a blanket while I slept.

The material slipped off my shoulders to pool around my hips and in my lap when I sat up, stiff and blurry eyed from residual _chakra_ over-use. It was this lingering state of tiredness, which, at first, prevented me from noticing I was no longer Kakashi’s only guest.

An old man in white robes sat on the other side of my ANBU’s bed, smoking a pipe, most of his features obscured by the barred sunlight from the window. I blinked at him several times before he took his pipe from his mouth.

“Ah, you are awake then, Kitō- _san_. Your captain told me you were the one who preformed Kakashi’s surgery, so you have a right to your fatigue.” The man sighed and dropped his chin onto his chest. “And I owe you a debt of gratitude. I have made it a point to watch over Kakashi for some time, concerning myself with his wellbeing. If not for you, one of my finest _shinobi_ would have died.”

I was unable to speak for several seconds, one thought providing my mind to eventually stutter off my lips. “L-lord _Hokage-sama_!”

The Third _Hokage_ of _Konoha_ made an unconcerned sound in his throat and put the stem of his pipe back in his mouth. “Yes.”

I squeaked. If it had been possible, I would have thrown myself on the floor in an elaborate bow, but somehow Kakashi’s hand had become locked around mine, his hold as relentless as ever, preventing me from doing any such thing.

The _Hokage_ watched me for some time, not seeming to mind either my lack of decorum or how my face kept getting redder and redder. “Humm,” he said after a while. “Not many visit Kakashi when he’s injured. Of those that do, I’ve never seen you before, Kitō- _san_. Though.” His eyes settled on the hand clasped in my ANBU’s grasp. “You appear to know him better than just the man who saved his life.”

Instead of going a brighter shade of red, I felt my face go pale, the blood draining away. My eyes dropped to Kakashi’s face. That thing I was never meant to see to match a name I should never have learned. Though I should have been afraid, the only feeling in me was an unimaginable sadness. An anticipation of grinding loss.

“We know each other, _Hokage-sama_ ,” I murmured, keeping my gaze focused on my ANBU’s delicate lashes brushing over his skin. “And, you will need an explanation. But.” I glanced up at the old man. He was looking at me not unkindly. “It would be better to wait until K-kakashi wakes up, _Hokage-sama_.”

“Humm.” He smoked thoughtfully a moment. “I owe you Kakashi’s life, so I will wait for your explanation, Kitō- _san_.”

“Thank you, _Hokage-sama_.” Unable to bow, I dipped my head in appreciation.

We then sat in companionable silence for several hours. When he rose to leave, the other man looked intently at me, taking in my unmoving posture and my hand still tied up with Kakashi’s.

“You are not going home, Kitō- _san_?”

“No, _Hokage-sama_ ,” I said. “I will stay until he wakes up.”

He acknowledged my words, but said nothing else, and I was alone with my ANBU again.

It was several days before Kakashi woke. As I said I would, I didn’t leave his room until he did. Then I scurried away, much to my fellow medics’ surprise and confusion. But they didn’t question why or my instruction not to tell the man, by whose bedside I’d held vigil, I had been there. _Iryō-nin_ held their secrets and held to each other. If not telling the patient I’d watched over him was what I wanted, my compatriots would not speak of it.

I did not need my ANBU told what I had done. I would tell him myself when he came to speak to me. And he would come. All I had to do was wait.

He did not come the first or second night, but I didn’t expect he would. And it was just as well. I needed to clean my apartment and replenish my food supplies after my near week-long absence. It was the third night, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed, that he came through my window.

With a cry, I jumped up and threw my arms around him. “ANBU- _san_!”

“Kitō,” he said, folding me in his arms. “Kitō, I’m sorry I was gone so long; I was injured on my mission.”

I shuddered, rubbing my face on his chest because there it was so soon, the need to tell him. “I- I know, ANBU- _san_. I was the one who performed your surgery.”

He stiffened against me. “Kitō…”

“I didn’t mean to, ANBU- _san_!” The words burst out, as I clutched at him. “But I know all your scars so well… I- I knew it was you.”

His hand stroked down my spine to sooth me. “You… know my name?”

“Yes, ANBU- _san_ ,” I moaned.

“Can… Can you say it, Kitō?”

I crushed my face to his shoulder. “K-kakashi!”

His reaction was one I hadn’t anticipated. Had never thought would come, and so one which surprised me. He laughed and tore off his mask with one hand, tossing it away as if it were meaningless, and making sure to hold me with the other hand. Then I was squealing because he was swinging me around.

“ANBU- _san_!”

“Kakashi!” he said, grinning at me as he sat me down.

“Y-yes,” I stammered, face reddening.

I squirmed in his arms then, sobering. “A-ANBU- _san_. While you were unconscious the Third came to visit you. He knew there was something between us… We- We will need to tell him I’ve compromised you. I- I will take all the blame.”

“Hiruzen?” he questioned, tilting his head. “Yes, we’ll have to tell him something.” But he didn’t sound in the least concerned about that.

“Kitō.” He said instead, putting a finger under my chin. “I came to talk to you about the night before I left on my mission.”

I thought my legs would give way. Obviously, my ANBU did as well because he let go of my chin and wrapped both his arms around me, as if to hold me up. I took the opportunity to bury my face in his chest.

“Kitō.” He stroked my back again. “Kitō are you still alright with what we did? Especially now that you know who I am?”

“Y-yes, ANBU- _san_!”

He chuckled and nuzzled into my neck. “You can call me Kakashi, Kitō.”

“Y-yes, A- K-kakashi.”

“Would you want to do it again?”

“Yes!” My voice was a squeak. Clenching my teeth, I rubbed my face across his chest, trying to hide and take reassurance from him all at once.

He cupped the back of my head with one hand and kissed my hair. “Okay. You… didn’t do it out of a sense of responsibility, did you?”

“No, ANBU- _san_! K-kakashi!” I pushed back from him, gripping his shirt. “I-” I blushed but gripped on harder. “I l-like you!”

“Well, that’s good to hear because I think I’m in love with you, Kitō.”

I blinked up at him. Too stunned to be embarrassed. “L-love… Me? Why, ANBU- _san_?! I…” I swallowed and leaned my forehead against him. “I’m not much of anything. I… am just a medic _nin_. I can’t fight for _Konoha_ or do anything to protect its people. I can hardly save those I’m meant to care for. I’m weak.”

“Weak?” His fingers brushed through my hair once and again before lingering at the nape of my neck. “You’re not weak, Kitō. A weak person couldn’t do the things you did for me. A weak person couldn’t have saved my life.”

I shook my head, turning it on his chest. “But I am weak. I heal people because it’s all I can do. I’m not fit for anything else, Kakashi. I’m nothing of importance.”

“Not fit? Kitō.” My ANBU used a finger to hold my chin, so I had to look into his face. “If anyone’s not fit, it’s me. I can’t do the things you do. Oh, I can take people apart, I can kill, but I can’t heal. There aren’t many who can because it’s easier to destroy than it is to create. Like anything of worth or _importance_ , it takes so much more effort and talent to create or heal. Talent I don’t have.”

He pressed his forehead to mine. “All you can do? I don’t know how you can think so little of yourself, Kitō. Any more than I know how I managed to do something worthy of having a chance to be with you.”

“A-ANBU- _san_ ,” I whispered. “Kakashi, I-”

He nudged my forehead with his, stopping me. “Can I kiss you, Kitō?”

A squeak worked its way up my throat. “Y-yes.”

“Good.”

His hands were quick. They flashed down to my hips and lifted me off my feet. In less than a breath, my legs were wrapped around his waist, my arms around his neck, my back pressed against the wall. And my ANBU’s hands were on my ass, holding me up. He was kissing me, and I was seeing stars before he pulled back. Eyes unfocused.

“So, you want to have sex with me again?”

I moaned and nodded.

“And you like me? Even knowing I’m Kakashi Friend Killer?”

“You’re my ANBU!” I flushed. “You’re yourself. And I… I like you.”

Another affectionate press of his forehead to mine. “Then don’t you think we should tell the _Hokage_ we’re going out?”

“Y-yes!”

**Author's Note:**

> I am an original fiction author and fan fiction writer who literally lives for comments, even if they are nothing but inarticulate vowel screams. Please give me comments people! I will literally beg for them!
> 
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> 
> Find me on Facebook on my [author page](https://www.facebook.com/LeoOtherland/) for all things original fiction, or in the [AO3 Armada group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951) for all things fan fiction,
> 
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